1879 -] 
75i 
A tlantis not a Myth . 
from the universal destruction of their country, where the 
dense and almost impassable forests afforded them their last 
refuge from their enemies, and where — reduced by war, 
pestilence, and other causes, to a feeble band — their total 
extinction was only a matter of time. Such is probably the 
history of this lost civilisation, and such would have been 
the history of our civilisation had we in our infant growth 
been cut off from receiving the nourishment of the mother 
countries. 
Within the last twenty-five years all sciences relating to 
the past and present of man have been enormously deve- 
loped. Old, worn-out, useless theories have been discarded, 
new facfts have taken their places, discoveries have followed 
discoveries, each discovery helping to form, link by link, the 
chain of human history. 
We are beginning to perceive that we are but yet young 
in the knowledge of human history, — that we have as yet 
picked up but a bright pebble of thought or glittering shell 
of theory, while before us lies the whole vast sea of human 
history unexplored. That we are beginning to acknowledge 
this is a good sign, for, when a man or mankind acknow- 
ledge their ignorance, they have at least a sure foundation 
to build upon. 
Again, the spirit of bigotry — the spirit that told men to 
scorn and deride Galileo and Columbus — is fast passing 
away, and in its stead comes the spirit of rationality, a spirit 
that tells men to look upon a new idea or theory, even if it 
does run outside of the accustomed rut, with a reasoning if 
not favourable eye. And we have faith, as science grows to 
grander proportions and dispels some of the mist that now 
envelopes it, that some day not far distant will bring forward 
an historic Edison that shall bring together the faint voice 
of the prehistoric past and the bright clear voice of the 
present ; that some future Champollion will discover, among 
the ruined cities of the Americas, an American Rosetta- 
stone that will complete the chain of human history. “ The 
noblest study of mankind is man .” — The Popular Science 
Monthly . 
